How to keep the jobs coming

Our opinion: GE has even bigger plans in Schenectady. What can New York do to make that continue?

We’re switching gears today, to use the relevant industrial jargon. The compelling economic issue to address isn’t so much a dreary national employment picture that seems beyond improvement as it is a burst of hope regionally.

It’s difficult to overstate the significance of Tuesday’s announcement by General Electric Co. that it’s expanding its plan for a battery factory that hasn’t even opened yet. The Capital Region can expect 450 jobs there, not the 350 that were anticipated. A $100 million investment is now worth $170 million — at the outset.

This isn’t so much about these jobs — not a huge number, after all — as it is a signal of the region’s incipient economic vitality. Make no mistake, we need jobs here, even if not quite as desperately as places less equipped to seize upon the technology that’s clearly the way out of this employment crisis.

But rather than gloating, let’s make sure our celebration yields something more thoughtful.

President Obama would do well to tune in to what his jobs czar, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, was saying in Schenectady as he announced the growth. So would Mitt Romney.

This is the place, Mr. Immelt says, to be manufacturing industrial batteries and other energy storage devices. That’s partly because of the factory’s proximity to technology developers and the presence of facilities like GE’s own Global Research Center in Niskayuna.

Just listen: “The Capital Region is becoming known for being really good in materials science.”

That speaks of transformation in a region more recently known for a manufacturing sector shrunk by obsolescense and a reliance on government jobs amid public-sector retrenchment.

No longer. Immelt’s advice for the region’s short-term priorities is clear:

“Be a hub for manufacturing, around materials, around cycle times,” he counsels. “Don’t fear globalization. Own energy. Think about the micro and not the macro.”

How did we get to this point on the better side of a still daunting economic curve where that seems within reach?

One key: carefully designed public assistance. Yes, that’s money from cash-strapped governments to well-off corporations. New York contributed $15 million to build the battery factory; $5 million came from Schenectady Metroplex. Guess what? It paid off.

It’s altogether more likely that such investments will work if these seeds are planted in fertile soil. In this case, that’s the well-educated workforce required by such technological advances as a new way to produce batteries. There we still have work to do, in the Capital Region and the rest of New York.

Again, Mr. Immelt: “If our schools don’t get better, if we don’t graduate more engineers, we’re not going to be competitive.”

Economic good fortune can be fleeting. Prosperity, even in this small sliver of a giant economy, demands so much more than 100 additional jobs and another $70 million.

At a time when school budgets are at risk, we need more than ever academic and vocational training that can make this area unequalled globally for technological growth. To do otherwise is to risk letting triumphs such as this be overshadowed by the despair of further economic decline.

To commandeer GE’s slogan, let’s strive to bring more good things to life

3 Responses

I’m thrilled that GE’s expansion is creating many great jobs and that the capital region is developing a reputation as a science and technology hub.

However, instead of having obscenely high tax rates and offering millions of dollars of tax incentives to corporations on a case-by-case basis, why don’t we just keep tax rates low for all? Wouldn’t that be easier and fairer? Wouldn’t that also attract businesses and industries without creating a perception that some corporations are receiving special favors?

1. Don’t believe it when GE says public investment of taxpayer dollars creates x number of jobs — these claims are nearly always overstated in order to get the stimulus cash. Face it, whenever GE could buy a robot or a computer with that money to do a job — or worse, outsource the function to cheaper labor in Asia — it will. GE is not in business to create jobs — it’s in business to enrich shareholders.

2. Don’t believe GE when it laments the US or some region’s lack of good education and training resources for job openings that require specific skills and knowledge — that’s code for GE wanting someone else to pay the cost to provide training and education for employees. Sure, companies like GE can insist their recruits have a college education, usually an advanced one — even for temps or contract employees — that’s just a “check the box” in the hiring process. GE is not going to put off profits to shareholders (or huge salaries to senior managers) just because they can’t find people with some peculiar skillset. Look at it this way: If GE or any other company sought to buy a sophisticated machine, computer or a robot to do a job, the seller will insist on the full purchase-price investment amount up front; the buyer pays nearly all of the maintenance. A human hired to perform a role or manage a set of tasks is likely going to need a similar investment to perform a job role well.

3. Business stimulus (some call it corporate welfare) definitely can help an economy (despite what any rich, or conservative, or selfish person may say). Judging from the speeches and the photo-ops at new business project ribbon cuttings, business stimulus certainly seems to help politicians get re-elected. But do these local politicians have the courage — or even the ability — to create real, enforceable agreements guaranteeing that taxpayer stimulus isn’t used to hire foreign workers, computers or robots … to do jobs local unemployed people are desperately looking to do?

The issue is the net effect of transferring money from one group to another. Spain transferred money from its citizens to wind mail developers and now it has 24% unemployment. Just because one group benefits at the expense of anther that does not mean that the citizens as a whole are better off.